Other than the vines on the jump that may cause a problem (although unlikely) I don’t see your concern.
I believe they are referring to what looks like blood on the horses mouth/face.
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One more example on an already weighty stack of why I have zero interest in following Eventing Connect.
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Wow, that is a pretty bloody mouth- at least as bad as ML. Even if the cause is totally legit- biting the tongue or some such, why share that photo?
It is never a good thing, for the rider to blame the horse. There were plenty of errors, the horse had huge holes in its training. That might be ok Training level and below, its down right dangerous at Prelim.
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What is the timestamp for the start of EWs xc ride on the Badminton video posted to YouTube?
the actual fall, while bad enough, disturbs me less than the preceding 3 or 4 minutes
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What nobody has mentioned here (that I have read, sorry if I missed it) is that Elisa Wallace was already way over optimum time. I was surprised, I made the assumption that she must have been chasing to make the time, and that’s why her horse tired. Seems that’s not the case.
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Same
Wow - until now I had resisted watching her ride and the fall. That really really hurts. That horse had nothing left to give and still kept going. God bless him.
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This is a better video, you can see the full xc with commentary and more of the good and bad of EW’s round. She’s around 3:18.
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Thanks for the link. That was hard to watch…poor horse.
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Agreed, most of the really top teams made this course look quite ridable. IMO we need courses like this to provide really top level competition that meaningfully separates the top riders. WEG and the Olympics do NOT do this – There, they have decided to make the courses easier in order to include enough full teams to have meaningful team competition (and worldwide representation). Here is where they emphasize the INDIVIDUAL competition. BUT, IMO, there are probably only 30 or 40 pairs riding at a level where they really need (or deserve) to be riding in the completion that is meant to separate the likes of Klimke, Jung, Martin, Todd, etc. With Rolex and Badminton back-to-back, there were over 100 pairs entered - so it is no surprise that some of them weren’t up to the challenge, and unfortunately, with them split between the two events, we don’t get to see the best compete head-to-head.
What an upsetting display that was. I am glad her horse has lived through it.
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You are absolutely right that the very best made the course look good, and that it is essential to ensure that the mediocre cross-country riders are not rewarded to the same extent as the truly exceptional performers. However, the issue is that in an instance where a horse or rider are not exceptional, they should not have to pay for that with blood. Sweat and tears, fine. Time or jump penalties, absolutely. But not with their blood and certainly not with their lives.
The past two years at Rolex have been excellent examples of an extremely influential cross-country phase that was not punishing. As you wished, the tracks meaningfully separated the top riders. However, errors were punished primarily with penalties, not with falls of horse or rider. The horses and riders who were not yet exceptional would live to achieve this at a future event.
It is also important to note that cross-country was extremely influential at both the most recent WEG and most recent Olympics (although the 20-year trend admittedly was not in that direction). When partnerships like Ingrid Klimke and Hale Bob and Jock Paget and Clifton Promise are faulting on cross-country, I don’t think it’s possible to argue that the track is an easy one. Whether the design of these courses was more similar to a punishing Badminton than a rewarding Rolex is a topic for another day, but they were not easy.
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Badders thoughts
I was intensely involved with watching Badminton cross country on Saturday and then reading and participating in the discussions here that day. Had a commitment all day on Sunday so stayed off all media in order to be able to watch jumping without knowing outcome. Then it took me until last night to catch up on all the threads - I fell asleep reading them three nights in a row.
Weighing in now with some reflections as the discussion has moved on -
EW - I had started following her on social media not too long ago - I like the way she provides real glimpses of her life as an UL eventer and the fact that she seems like a very down to earth person. There are others who I have followed and later unfollowed because 90% of their content is shilling for their sponsors.
Of course I was rooting hard for Elisa as I thought - based on last year’s Rolex and Burghley - that she could finish and finish well. Johnny’s seemed to be a proper 4* horse for xc with no stops on his FEI XC record since their partnership began. He had a good run at Blenheim CCI3* as well in 2015 - so two prior successes in England. She shipped over earlier than she had for Burghley to have more time for preparation.
But then cross country day. The fire went of the black dragon, and the horror unfolded. Don’t know what was in her mind or heart in those last three minutes and the aftermath. Absolutely agree that it was appalling. Was it adrenaline fueled tunnel vision that clouded her ability to feel the horse under her? Was she in denial of just how flagged the horse was since he had never run out of gas on an xc run before? Don’t have a clue. I am really curious as to what she might say in her next vlog - assuming there is one. We on these boards speculate about what is in the rider’s mind in situations like that - she just might tell us - although I’m sure it’s hard right now for her to figure out how to go forward. I feel the support she has gotten - on social media and elsewhere - is a reflection of how many of her followers didn’t just write her off immediately as a bad horse person because they had history and context of her as a good one.
The GROUND JURY - I have the same thoughts as @OverandOnward. They definitely have culpability in this particular situation. Has there been any comment from that direction as to whether they were aware or not during Elisa’s last three minutes or if pulling her up was considered? If we don’t know already, I doubt we ever will.
I realize GJ can’t be everywhere which is why on the livestream events there needs to be an official (or several) assigned to monitoring the stream and then instant communication to pull a rider up when necessary. I don’t know much about production of something like this, but I’m assuming every camera is filming almost all the time and feeding a production center where someone is cutting back and forth. If you have officials monitoring all the incoming streams rather just the one being routed out into the world, they should be able to see every rider at almost every fence and make decisions accordingly.
The CD. Not an expert, don’t claim to be. Apparently Eric Winter had been successful as a designer at all the levels up to 4*. He then got the big job - Badminton. First year to design. Wants his course to live up to expectations, and it does - in ways both good and bad. Multiple experienced riders said the course punished horses where the distances did not work out - especially in the water combinations. Other world class riders had great fun. Here’s my off the wall idea - find some capable, non-competing horses and riders (should be plenty in GB) and run a few horses through them to see how they ride. Realize you can’t replicate the conditions anything near exactly - nor would you want to - but it seems like this should be a do-able thing - and having a little bit of advance intel on the complexes would actually put the first few riders on a more even footing with the rest of the field. As it is, an early draw can be a serious handicap. Sure it’s part of the tradition, but maybe sacrificing that bit of tradition in exchange for a less punishing experience for the less experienced would be a worthy trade-off. I dunno.
Oh well, enough of this crazy talk. I certainly respect the exchange of ideas and the many perspectives.
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Exactly. And this is what made me so angry about ML at Rolex with Demeter – that horse was gassed not even halfway through the course, EVERYONE knew that she had had barely any prep for Rolex (so it should have been something at least in the back of their minds), yet she didn’t get a card. Boggles the mind.
However, it seems the GJ overseas are much stricter and will more readily hand out yellow cards for fatigued horses. (Not saying this just because of what happened to EW, just an observation of the current spreadsheet of yellow cards from the past 12 months. The only cards from events held in the USA are either for dangerous riding or superficial matters – tack/“incorrect behavior”/etc. Zero are for abuse of horse from tiredness/exhaustion. :no:)
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Several thoughts after all the discussion in this thread and some time to let it settle in …
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Too many horse falls. This doesn’t seem to be that big of a topic with Badminton and Burghley, as it is typical for those events to have 4 to 6 horse falls, some additional rider falls, etc. But … is it course design? rider experience & qualifications? IMO a history of that many horse falls is an unacceptable level of risk that should be highlighted and should be a top priority to be addressed.
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The course is very ride-able for the right pair, not so much otherwise. Saw a lot of stumbles over jumps. Belly scrapes, pecks, hung knees and hind legs, etc., even if they recovered, and I’d rather see run-outs than scrapes (not sure riders and team coaches agree, of course). And yet there were other pairs who went around smoothly. I include Lauren and Veronica in that group. AN and Nereo, Ingrid and Bob, MJ and Sam, Tim Price and others make it look so do-able. But a great many of the rest of the field - ugh, not good.
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82 riders started cross-country, by my count. (Possibly one or two less.) That’s the usual Badminton number. I’ve always been impressed that Badminton can start 80+ 4* qualified riders while the U.S. is doing good to get 40+ U.S. riders and only 50-65 altogether out of the box at Rolex KY. But … given the carnage every year at Badminton, the prior year disasters at the Vicarage Vee, etc. & so on … are some riders starting that shouldn’t? That aren’t truly up to the course on the day? I don’t know if there is a stat on this, but Badminton seems to have at least one helicopter ride to the hospital every year. That’s not a good annual stat to have.
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In the interests of greatly improving safety while retaining the challenge of 4* eventing, course design needs to enter the 21st century by making thorough and constructive use of the data and statistics available from the quantities of video available of these events for the last several years. No excuses. I do not accept any weaseling, equivocation or avoidance of the task of capturing this data at a granular level in a permanent database, and looking at the statistics in as many ways as possible to help improve design safety, and sharing the information with the public as well as the course designers. A course designer saying “it didn’t ride the way I thought it would” - give me a break !!! That’s an avoidable course design situation, since information on how many of these configurations work out in action is abundantly available. But it does require the commitment, resources, time and attention to make it available. It this is not already being done, we cannot afford to delay the project.
Safety of horses and riders has been and will continue to be a potential make-or-break point for 4* eventing. In addition to the lives and welfare of the horses and riders themselves, acceptance by the public, commercial opportunities, and sustainability into the indefinite future depends on continuing improvement in safety. Eventing must embrace all the opportunities that today’s technology has to offer to make this so, because the video of years of 4* events that exists today is a goldmine that we can’t afford to ignore or pass up.
Here is a link to a blog post that I thought was very insightful (the blogger is a COTH member). Those who follow this blogger - who is a regular ole ammy eventer who is as big of an eventing fangirl as any on earth - know that she is a bold, game eventer, the “shut up and ride” kind. But here is her take on this year’s Badminton … and I thought her point about the hanging knees was especially worth noting as a sign of the toll the course was taking on the horses.
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Fatigued horses don’t need yellow cards, they need to be pulled up on course by order of the GJ.
A yellow card to Elisa Wallace for that ride is your proverbial lipstick on a pig. The horse should have been pulled up several minutes before the fall in which both horse and rider were lucky to escape serious injury or worse.
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